Tears of a Breaking Heart
by Fyre Melody
Summary: Set during “Sein und Zeit” 7x10, a bit of a filler to explain what happens between Mulder’s breakdown in his apartment and Skinner’s appearance at the door.


**Title**: Tears of a Breaking Heart

**Author**: Fyre Melody

**Rating**: M

**Genre**: Angst/Romance

**Feedback**: Love it!

**Summary**: Set during "Sein und Zeit" (7x10), a bit of a filler to explain what happens between Mulder's breakdown in his apartment and Skinner's appearance at the door. Comfort fic, with lots of MSR.

Tears of a Breaking Heart

_Fox, it's your mother. I'd hoped you'd call upon your return, but I haven't heard from you. I'm sure you're busy. There are so many emotions in me I wouldn't know where to start. So much that I've left unsaid for reasons I hope one day you'll understand-_

I don't, Mom. I don't understand, but I _need_ to. I need to know why you called, what needed to be said. Why you did it

I don't know where to start

I don't either. That's always been our problem, hasn't it? Neither of us has ever known where to start, what to say. But I'm sorry I didn't notice

I'm sure you're busy

Not really, Mom... the case has been a bit consuming, yes, but really I just didn't _want_ to. I didn't think about your involvement with this case... just me

I'd hoped you'd call upon your return

I meant to, but it wasn't pressing, I had a little girl to find, and Sam

Fox, it's your mother

I thought I had longer, I thought I could call anytime. I didn't think you would be _dead_

Fox-

Sir, I need to speak with Agent Mulder

Not right _now_, Scully!

Mulder, your mom's dead

Fox, dear, how many times have I told you not to bounce that in the house-

Your mom's dead

Fox, wake up! You're going to be late for school!

Dead

Call me when you get a moment, Fox

Your mom's dead

Dead

I'm back now, Mom. Sorry I didn't call you, but this case really got to me

Your mom's dead

I meant to call, I really did

Your mom's dead

I promise that I was going to call, once things settled down

Your mom's dead

I know I haven't called in months but I promise, Mom, I was going to call

Your mom's dead

I'm sorry I'm so sorry please forgive me I'm sorry I love you Mom

Your mom's dead

Mom's dead

Dead

A million different thoughts, memories, pleas to his mother and the many times in his childhood when their relationship had been so strong and loving, ran through his head like wildfire. She could see them, see each syllable as it beat harsh and painful acceptance into his brain, branding those three words over and over and over again into the planes of his mind, so great, so filled with thoughts and dreams and hopes, now desolate fields of black graffiti, endless walls sprayed with the three little words that broke him: your mom's dead, your mom's dead, your mom's dead. His eyes -- she loved his eyes, although she never told him. She should tell him every day for the rest of their lives if he recovered from this -- were no longer those gorgeous hazel orbs she knew, the expressive eyes like a spaniel at times. They were now cold, dead, and, as she watched, brimming with tears.

There had been a few occasions in which she had seen him cry. Once when Melissa had been killed, and they had cried together, shedding their grief like snowflakes together in her apartment. Once after her abduction, when she had caught the stray tears the escaped with one finger, wiping them away and smiling through the hospital monitors. And, in those months of her cancer that she so desperately had tried to repress, she had seen or heard him cry in the bathroom or when he thought she was asleep, wishing she would get better only so she could see him smile again, just once. But this moment, of all those times, struck her hardest, shooting through her heart with the velocity of a train wreck, because it was the first time in seven years that he had ever cried for himself.

She had seen him cry for Melissa. For her mother. For her. For Emily, for Samantha, for her father and his father and the parents who lost children and the young victims who lost lives. But never once, until this day, had she seen Fox Mulder cry for Fox Mulder.

And these tears were not the sort to be fixed with a simple hug or a moment to compose.

She remembered when her own father had died, and how miserable she had been for weeks, months even, crying herself to sleep every night until she could no longer cry. And then Melissa had been killed, prolonging the existence out of life longer. She remembered the endless hollow words that were meant to comfort her, when she knew that all the words in the universe would never bring her Ahab or her Missy back to her, no matter how sincere they were, and how she grew to resent every "I'm so sorry for your loss" that seemed to come from every person she passed on the street. She remembered the hugs, the touches, the tears of others that seemed mocking and cheap to her and how she grew to recoil from those touches meant in sympathy, because even the most tender of touches could never change that they were dead and gone forever. She knew what he was going through, knew that anything she said or did would be meaningless, because these were not the tears of a grief or a sorrow or a sympathy, but of a breaking heart. One arm lifted awkwardly, perhaps to pat his leg and tell him that it would all be alright, perhaps to wrap itself around him and draw him close, but froze in the air when she stopped acting and started thinking _would he want me to?_ And she remembered those hollow words and those cheap touches, and the arm dropped in defeat.

And then she remembered when her father had died, and a single phone call when all he had said was "Dana," before she burst into tears, how that one word had meant more than the millions of hollow ones, and the single hand on her lower back as she cried the next morning that was worth infinite cheap touches because it was _him._ And when Melissa was killed he had again put a single hand on her back, sweeping her into his embrace as she sobbed and saying only "Dana, Dana" because he knew, he _knew_, that there was nothing else to say. And when the cancer had first made its presence known, bellowing its fury and nearly sending her crashing into unconsciousness, he had simply held her, whispering "Dana, Dana" and kissing her forehead, just once, and how she had actually felt better.

Words were hollow and touches were cheap, but love was worth the world.

So she returned the love he had shown her so many times, one hand to the back of his head as she drew him into her, one kiss against his forehead as she swept his hair back, one word whispered through his tears to give him something to hold on to. "Fox, Fox." And she held him, without telling him that she understood or that everything would be all right in the end, and allowed his heart to cry.

She had doubted, when the breakdown first came, that he had even known who was there, holding him, but all doubts fled when she said his name. There was no mistaking the way he curled against her, fitting his head perfectly against her neck and clutching her blouse with his fingers, trusting her completely the way he did for her and her alone. At first she was nearly knocked back with the full dead weight of his body as it slumped against her, but she learned to compensate for it, leaning into the back of the couch to create a sort of reclined position for them both. Although it was nearly an hour before he was able to speak, she knew he was grateful when he nuzzled her neck lightly, and she stroked his hair as a response.

Many years later he would beg her forgiveness for this moment of such weakness, would insist over and over against her protests that it was a one-time breakdown, but she knew. She knew that this was the pent-up sorrow of some twenty-seven years of grief now: for the first time since Samantha vanished, since Bill Mulder was killed, since Dana Scully came into his life and had hers ripped away, and now since Teena Mulder, the last remaining member of his family had died, Fox Mulder cried for himself and for all he had lost. She held a man broken, shattered through constant and heavy loss.

As she put him to bed a few hours later, she looked tenderly down at this man who had lost everything, and yet found peace. "Get some rest. I'll be in the living room if you need anything." A strong hand around her wrist stopped her from leaving, and the grip immediately reversed itself to stroke her knuckles.

"Stay with me?"

For the first time in their seven year partnership she saw beyond the mask of stoic agent, beyond the charming smiles and the laughing eyes, beyond the masks and the protective exterior to the scared and broken young man trapped in a world intent on taking everything he held dear. It nearly broke her heart to hear his voice sounding so raw and vulnerable, and it took less than a minute for her to remove her shoes and jacket to slide in beside him, spooning against his chest as his arm snaked around her waist and pulled her closer. They lay there for a while, separated from each other only by thin clothes and the cavernous Bureau regulations before he finally spoke, in a voice so soft that she found herself wondering if the conversation actually occurred.

"She always blamed me. For Sam."

"I know, Fox." His arm drew her even closer, banishing those damned regulations on that single word.

"She's resented me ever since."

"I know," she whispered to this poor man, who had lost his family so many years ago to something far more painful than death.

"I think," the voice broke, and she kissed away the tears still inhabiting the corners of each eye. "I think she wondered why it couldn't have been _me._" The tears did come again then, and she was left with the task of replacing all the lost pieces of what her partner had become. The first piece was a denial, 'no, never.' The second was a reassurance, 'that's not it at all.' And the third was a revelation. "She loved me."

"Yes, Fox. Very much." Had he truly been so denied love in his childhood that he was so unable to recognize it, even when it smiled at him in the darkness and stroked his cheek?

The blankets rustled and suddenly he was leaning over her, his eyes once again those expressive hazel eyes she loved. "I never realized it, not until I met you." A half-smile punctuated his words. "Because I knew you loved me. And she... she cared for me too. She loved me, in her own way." She was pulled over to recline against his chest, fitted perfectly between his legs and under his chin, with his arms crossed over her stomach and drawing lazy patterns across the skin peeping out from under the soft blue of her shirt. "And I knew that I loved her because I knew that I loved _you_-" he was cut off by her lips pressing against his, banishing the fears and the sorrows and trying to replace them only with love.

They smiled at the other, relieved that the words they had never needed to say were finally given a voice of their own.

They lay together in his bedroom, separated by nothing more than the thin clothes that they clung to for reasons they had long since forgotten, until they decided by mutual agreement that it was far too much to be separated by.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

An insistent pounding, as if from very far away, was the only sound to disturb the partners -- now something far beyond the simple word to describe two people who worked together -- as they lay together, entwined in a knot of cotton sheets and sweat and dazed, post-passion limbs heavy with exhaustion and sated sleep. One hazel eye cracked open, and a muffled curse followed as the midmorning sunlight fell exactly into the sensitive iris. Scully laughed into his chest, resting her face against warm skin, and then replaced it with her hand as she pressed him down into the mattress. "Stay." Sliding her legs over the side of the mattress she groped for her clothes, hastily sliding them on and smoothing wrinkles she knew could not be tamed. She glanced at the mirror, wincing internally to see how unkempt her appearance was.

"I think you look beautiful," the lazy voice from the bed was already half-asleep again. She smiled at the sentiments -- that were just that, sentiments and nothing else -- and bravely made her way to the front door, wishing fervently that the pounding on the door was caused by anyone but their boss. The universe was through being kind to them, however, as she opened the door to meet Assistant Director Walter Skinner's intense gaze.

He nodded curtly. "Agent Scully. I thought I might find you here." She froze, unsure, worried for a moment that he knew, as if she had it branded across her forehead: illicit relations between agents. But then the logical part of her mind awoke fully and she recalled all the times they had spent nights at the other's apartment, or had arrived early for some catch-up work or follow-up comfort. Skinner, rightly so, in ways, probably assumed that she had spent the night here to keep an eye on Mulder in light of his loss. Nothing illicit about a caring friend. And then she saw his eyes travel down her body, taking in the same clothes she had worn the day before, the wrinkles, her tousled hair and her eyes that had obviously not slept the night before. She braced herself for his next remark, but he only smiled.

He knew.

He knew, and he didn't seem to care. In fact, he seemed nearly... supportive?

She smiled faintly, and he returned it, and for just a moment he was privy to that silent communication the agents were known for. Scully's eyes, so soft, spoke almost defensively, "I love him."

His smile, his eyes, all spoke for him as he reached over and clasped her shoulder. "I know. It's about time this happened. Take care of him, alright?"

And then it was back to business.


End file.
